


little talks

by baunitchief (emeryazure)



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeryazure/pseuds/baunitchief
Summary: Emily and JJ feel like the ghosts that haunt the jet after the events of "False Flag"





	little talks

**Author's Note:**

> here, have an angsty little ficlet. idk where this came from other than thoughts of false flag, endless cases involving cheating and the vonnegut quote from tumblr. this could also be seen as a slight rewrite of the "what ifs and if onlys" scene but i don't think it's that deep. enjoy the pain, my friends.

_“- We really haven’t talked anything over—_  
_\- What is there to talk about? Nothing you could say would make me love you more or less. Our love is too deep for words ever to touch it. It’s soul love.”_ _— Kurt Vonnegut_

 

It was late and the plane was humming in the darkness to take them back to their homes. Emily Prentiss thinks it’s sad how her thought of home was in an office inside Quantico. Maybe it’s not so much the building or the walls or the carpet or the paint on the walls but more the humans that linger so often and too long inside of it. Maybe it’s always been one particular person but Emily digresses. Her thoughts always wound down to the blonde who was currently sitting beside her.

The team had retired seeing as sleep had been foreign the last two days in New Mexico and they deserved the rest. Especially Tara who Emily had never felt more proud of in her life, she felt a kinship of sisterhood to the woman and it brought a smile to her face to watch her peacefully sleeping away her hard day’s work.

Emily doesn’t miss the fact that the blonde profiler next to her was the only one losing out on sleep. She notices more and more that JJ doesn’t sleep the way she used to since her days as a media liaison and then her stint in Afghanistan. The brunette can relate to that, since Doyle she hardly ever sleeps herself. That’s why they are usually the restless ones that haunt this jet with insomnia, maybe both are afraid to sleep truthfully, afraid of what the dream world will hold for them.

Emily had hesitantly regaled the team of her nightmare about JJ during the Michael Lee Peterson case. She wonders if it’s Askari and Hastings who haunt the blonde but she doesn’t dwell on it because she figures that if she needed to talk that she knew she could come to the brunette unit chief. But did she really know that? The fact that Emily even has to question herself gives her the answer.

“Hey,” Emily musters as she looks over at the mother of two who was off seeming in deep thought as she stared out the window. “Are you okay? I mean, you’re not sleeping.”

The laugh that the younger woman releases is more of a scoff, Emily profiles, “Uh, yeah, I’m fine but just thinking about how many cases are like this one, cheating or scorned lovers taking revenge but maybe I’m being ridiculous.”

“You’re not ridiculous,” Emily shakes her head and furrows her brows at the blonde’s inference. “But may I ask what’s got your mind reeling on the subject?”

“Right, well, I would regale you,” JJ starts to say but trails off. “But we don’t talk about that.”

And Emily does know instinctively what they don’t talk about. Her eyebrows twitch an inch higher before she struggles to neutralize them back into a professional manner. She struggles even further for words that will avoid yet put the female profiler’s mind at ease. It’s a delicate balance and not one she feels she has enough strength to weigh.

“You know, I feel like we don’t talk much at all these days, since I came back at least,” the unit chief admits and immediately bites her lip to keep herself contained. “I miss our talks, cheetobreath.”

JJ can’t hide the smile as it peaks on her face before letting it fall again, lost to thoughts long past, “I don’t know that games of online scrabble could really be described as talks or conversations, Em.”

“I don’t know, there’s a lot to be revealed between two profilers playing a word game together,” the brunette says seriously, even though her tone was light, she knew that JJ would know what she was talking about. “Especially after Paris.”

The blonde’s head whips around at this and catches Emily off guard slightly but just as quickly as it had appeared the emotions fade, much like normal. Their dances were disguised often in lies yet the truth revealed itself in little glances like that and in moments like this, the unit chief feels herself treading water.

“I miss… the simplicity of being there, just you and me,” JJ relents and the words still Emily into shocked silence. The brunette has never felt so much like a ghost of her past, one that couldn’t speak. They are ghosts that had no say in where their dance will lead. “No fear, no judgments but that’s not the world we live in, not here, Em.”

Emily feels her head nodding but it’s foreign. She doesn’t know if she’s agreeing or simply just moving for the sake of it. She knows the stakes are all too real for them both, Emily’s job and JJ’s marriage. Neither one of them willing or brave enough to put it on the line. Maybe that’s not it, maybe they were brave enough but they're just not worth it.

“But you can talk to me, about all these things that you can’t take home,” Emily states and it seems like the simplest thing in the world. But between them, even the simplest things could be complicated. “I just don’t want you taking my regrets home with you.”

“ _Your regrets_?” JJ quickly responds and if Emily knew better she wouldn’t be profiling the almost offense she hears in the younger agent’s tone now. “They’re not just yours, Em, but there’s nothing to do about it, not here, not now, not after everything.”

“But we have each other,” is Emily’s automatic response. “On the job, on these endless cases, at the office and yet we keep safe distances from each other cause we are each other’s guilt, aren’t we?”

The unit chief knows it’s the truth. They carry each other around in little compartments in their hearts and minds, kept secret in holes long torn by their old wounds. They kept each other’s lies and some days they couldn’t even look at each other because of it, let alone speak.

“I can’t stand it, Emily,” JJ says seriously and looks up at the older woman. And the brunette sees the earnestness in those big blue eyes that have held her captive for eleven years now. She shakes her head and tries to shove it away but it’s useless. “We haven’t really ever talked anything over.”

“What’s to talk about, JJ?” Emily finds herself shutting down beyond any control of her own, she feels powerless to stop it now. “We’ve never truthfully been one for words and nothing you say will make me love you more or less because you’re already here and I’m here and nothing will change the facts.”

“I don’t just miss Paris,” the blonde offers and Emily feels her breath catch in the back of her throat. “I miss you endlessly, even when you’re right here next to me.”

The brunette reaches out for the blonde’s hand that is studiously kept in her lap. She finds her wrist and she finds the soft hand in her grasp turn with the acceptance of her own as they slide them together so easily. Intertwining in all the intimacy they are to allow themselves. It’s always been this with them, brokenness with no words to express the longing of their souls for the others. No words could ever touch this, what they have in the silence between them. No lies could damper the fire of their hearts.

“Well, I am here,” Emily says simply and she hopes it’s enough. The small smile that JJ offers in response feels like it is enough.

“Yes, you are,” JJ agrees just as matter-of-factly. And even though neither feels that worth, they feel the connection in the touch. Without the words to tangle their lives into a further web, they let their souls take over and dwell where they have failed in all else. Their souls know the worth of their love without fail and so they find that for now, it’s enough.

And just like that with no further words, their hands connected, JJ falls asleep on Emily’s shoulder. Emily’s soul finds the calm in the comforting warmth and she hushes her mind enough for once in her life to let her seep into her own slumber on this plane that holds so many haunts for them both.


End file.
